A Family for Christmas
by Dragon Rider22
Summary: Seven year old Harry is bullied and mistreated by his relatives, until he meets a girl, who helps him escape from the Dursleys, and Dumbledore, and gives him a family.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Sakura Kazama stood in her front lawn with her bamboo sword held tightly in both hands above her head. She took a step and brought it straight down with all her might and smiled when she heard the 'whoosh' sound. She stepped back and brought the sword back above her head and did it again. Her grandfather had been teaching her Kendo, and had told her to do this "Until your arms fall off," which was code for "about a hundred times," and she was determined not to let him down. She continued practicing until a black haired kid ran into her yard and hid behind a tree. Sakura and her family had only moved into the neighborhood a few weeks ago so few people knew someone lived in the 'old abandoned house on Sycamore', but still, she couldn't stand trespassers.

"Hey! What are you doing?" she yelled at the boy who hadn't noticed her and was looking up the street the way he came.

The boy jumped and turned his head around so fast she thought he would hurt his neck. He had black hair and broken glasses, and was also sporting a black eye. "Please, be quiet. I'm hiding from my cousin."

Sakura knew where the boy was coming from, when she went to visit her aunt and uncle she would have to hide from her cousins, too. They liked to blame her for all their wrongdoings, plus, the black eye worried her. "Well that tree won't hide you very well. Come over here." She led him over to the wheelbarrow her father had been using to haul the pruning from the bushes. She turned it over and let the boy crawl under it before lowering it over him and going back to her place in front of the house and started training again. It wasn't long before a gang of kids being lead by a fat blond boy ran in front of her house.

"Where did he go?" the blond boy yelled, looking around. He spotted Sakura and ran over, followed by his gang of friends. "Hey girl, have you seen a black haired kid run by here?"

Sakura put the bamboo sword behind her neck and rested her arms over it and looked at the boy. "What's it to you?" she asked, leaning forward to stretch her legs. She really didn't like being referred to as 'girl' and usually tired to make things as hard as possible for those who called her that.

"Don't mess with me, girl, your silly little stick can't help you." Sakura stood up, tucked a lock of black hair behind her ear and looked at the boy with annoyance. Her _shinai _had never been called a 'silly little stick.'

"I haven't seen anyone all day." She said which was partly true because she hadn't seen anyone until ten minutes ago when the black haired kid in question ran into her yard and hid behind her tree.

"Well if you see him, tell him I'm looking for him." The kid said with a shake of his fist, and turned and walked away. Sakura watched him walk up the road and turn onto the next street, and when the last of his gang disappeared around the corner she shook her head. The idiot didn't even tell her who he was. She walked over to the wheel barrow and flipped it over. The black haired kid got up and brushed the grass off his baggy pants. Sakura watched him straighten his broken glasses on his nose, he looked about her age, but was small and skinny, and his clothes were too big for him, even his shoes. "Thanks." He said when he noticed her watching.

"I'm Sakura Kazama." She said, putting her hand out.

"Harry Potter." The boy said, shaking it. Thanks for hiding me."

"You're welcome. I know what it's like, wanting to hide from your cousins. He was the fat blond one, right?" Harry nodded. "Oh, I was supposed to give you a message: A fat blond kid is looking for you." The boy chuckled and started Sakura laughing as well. "Want to come in for a soda?" She asked when they calmed down. She didn't know why, but she liked this boy. Said boy looked as if he had never been offered a soda before. Sakura figured it was just because he didn't know her.

"Err. Sure why not?" Harry smiled and Sakura lead the boy into the house.

"Take your shoes off, please." She said while slipping out of her sneakers without untying them and putting them neatly by the wall and Harry did the same. She put her _shinai _in the umbrella stand.

"Why?" he asked quietly.

"Ojiichan says it's to 'Show respect to the house.' I think it's just because it makes cleaning easier." Sakura looked back at Harry, who looked confused. "Ojiichan means 'Grandpa' in Japanese." She explained as she pushed open the kitchen door. Her mother sat at the kitchen table doing a crossword puzzle from the morning's paper. "Mamma, this is Harry Potter." Her mother looked up, startled and peered closely at the kid through her reading glasses. For a second Sakura thought her eyes lingered on his forehead, but she shrugged it off.

"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Potter, I'm Ayana Kazama"

"It's nice to meet you, too, Mrs. Kazama." Harry said shyly.

"Mamma can Harry and I have a soda?" Sakura asked, putting on her sweetest expression.

"It's: 'May Harry and I have a soda?' dear." Mrs. Kazama corrected, turning back to her crossword.

"May Harry and I have a soda?"

"Did you finish the training your grandfather set you to? He will know if you didn't." she said, going back to her crossword.

"Yes, I did. Please?" She clasped her hands together in front of her heart and pulled a pouty lip. She knew her mother would let her have a soda, but her mother always smiled when she begged, and she loved making her mother smile. And her mother did smile and nod. "Thank you, Mamma." She skipped to the refrigerator and pulled out two cans of soda. "We will be up in my room, okay?" Sakura said and handed a soda to Harry and grabbed his wrist and pulled him up the stairs. Once in her room she popped the top on her soda and took a sip and Harry did the same. The bubbly sweetness took him by surprise and he choked. "Are you okay? You look like you've never had a soda before."

Harry blushed and shook his head. "My aunt says I'm not allowed to have soda. She says it's a treat for the family." He sounded a little bitter about this statement and Sakura didn't push it. Instead she grabbed a deck of cards off the desk and turned to Harry. "Ever play Speed?" she asked. Harry shook his head and Sakura taught him how to play the fast paced card game.

Several hours later found the cards abandoned and Sakura was explaining what an 'Onigiri' is and why it's delicious. Harry couldn't believe anything made from rice and seaweed could be any good.

"It is! I'm telling you, you don't know what you are missing! Come on. I think we have one or two left from lunch." Sakura ran down the stairs followed by Harry, who stopped dead when he saw a tall, thin woman with an unusually long neck, and large, horse-like teeth was talking to Sakura's mother. She looked up when Sakura came running down the stairs and their eyes met. Sakura had never seen eyes that looked as cold and angry as this woman's eyes. The staring match only lasted a second, because her eyes traveled up to Harry a few steps above her.

"There you are, Harry dear! I was so worried." Her voice dripped with honey, but there was a bite to it. "Come now, we must get home or dinner will get cold." She said, Harry slowly descended the rest of the stairs and Sakura saw the side of his face as he past. He looked scared. "Say good bye to your little friend." And she grabbed Harry's arm when he was in range and dragged Harry out of the house, he just managed to grab his shoes and wave good bye before he was pulled outside.

Sakura turned to her mother, who was staring at the door as if she had never seen anything like what had just happened and said "I really don't like that woman, Mamma."

* * *

><p>Sakura didn't see Harry the next day, or the day after that. On the third day she got so worried that she followed his cousin, the fat blond kid, around hoping that he would lead her to Harry. She soon learned that the kid's name was Dudley; that he was seven, the same age as Sakura; that Harry lived with him, his mom and his dad; that Dudley didn't like Harry at all; and was the one who had broken his glasses and given him the black eye. The more she learned about Dudley and his gang, the less she liked them, but around four that afternoon they lead her straight where she wanted to go: to Harry's house. She looked at the white fenced in house with the perfectly manicured lawn, precisely pruned hedges, and immaculately kept flowerbeds. Not a single flower out of line, not a single branch on a hedge stood up more than the rest, every blade of grass was cut to a precise length. In her opinion it was hideous. Her grandfather always told her 'There is no use fighting nature, we can cut the grass to keep it short, we can plant the flowers in perfect rows, but they are going to grow according to their own destiny, all we can do is guide them.' He always grew the most beautiful flowers.<p>

Sakura shook herself out of her thoughts and turned her bike towards home. Tomorrow she was going to go to number 4 Privet Drive and force Harry Potter to play with her.

Harry Potter curled up on his side in the too-small cupboard under the stairs and held his empty stomach. Now he wished he had taken Sakura up on the offer for the rice ball thing earlier. Three days with only what he could safely sneak from the kitchen at night without it being noticed. A slice of bread the first night, a couple of grapes the second, but a slice of bread and a couple of grapes doesn't go very far. The reason he was being punished was 'talking to the neighbors and intruding in their home, where freaks aren't wanted.' as Uncle Vernon had put it and 'forcing her to go door to door looking for him.' as Aunt Petunia had said. (What would the neighbors think?)

He heard the front door open and shut and Dudley and his gang came in, banging on his cupboard door as they do whenever they know he is in there. Harry rolled over and put his back to the door, closed his eyes and ran through the best afternoon of his life.

He had talked to another kid, played games, and even had a soda. For the first time in his life he had felt like a regular kid and not Boy, or the Potter brat. He'd felt like Harry. He knew; despite what his uncle had said; that he had been welcome in that strange home, where you weren't allowed to wear shoes, where seven year old girls played with sticks and hid strange kids under wheelbarrows, where the bed was set directly on the floor, and where everything smelt clean, despite the thin layer of dust everywhere. Harry knew that if he ever had a home, he wanted it to be like that one. A small smile graced the face of Harry Potter and he drifted off into dreams of clean smelling homes and dancing onigiri.

**Hello, Readers! **

**I'm glad you chose to read this story. It's been a while since I've written anything for others to read, so I may be a bit out of practice. This is different from what I usually write, in that I know very little about it. Japanese culture is ancient and vast and I don't understand most of it. Really what I know is based on what I've learned from other people, the internet, and anime, so please forgive me if I mess anything up. I'm trying my best to get it right. **

**Constructive criticism will be taken into consideration; flames will be used in my wood stove, complements will be used to preen myself. Please review!**

**~DragonRider22**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

At eleven thirty the next morning Sakura headed out on her bike to find and play with the first kid she had met and liked since moving here. She was determined to find him and, if he didn't want to play with her, she was going to make him. She reached the house she had seen Dudley go into the day before and skidded to a stop in the driveway and dismounted. She was about to head to the front door when she heard a muffled yelp from around the back of the house. She stood for a moment in indecision until she heard a whimper. Quietly as she could she wheeled her bike to the side of the drive way and snuck around back. There was Harry kneeling in front of a rose bush. She could see his bare arms were scratched from the thorns and as she watched he reached into the bush again and clipped off a dead rose and threw it into a small pile by his side.

"You know it hurts less if you wear long sleeves." she said. Harry jumped, lost balance, and fell forward into the rose bush. Sakura ran forward and helped him pull him out and sat down beside him and examined the small scrape on his cheek. "That's not that bad." Then her eyes traveled around the rest of his face and stopped when they reached his forehead. There, half hidden by sweaty hair was a scar shaped like a lightning bolt. Something jolted in her mind, something important about a lightning shaped scar, a story she had heard long ago, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. She was startled out of her thoughts when Harry pulled his face out of her hand. "Oh, sorry, what are you doing, anyway? I haven't seen you in days."

"I was grounded for a bit, for staying out too late." Harry mumbled the last part while going back to work on the bush. "Aunt Petunia wants the rose bush pruned before lunch."

"If you've got another pair of clippers I'll help. I love helping Ojiichan in his garden."

"No, it's okay; it's my chore so I'll do it."

"Okay then, I'll sit here and keep you company. So, you live her with your cousin, Dudley, your aunt Petunia and…"

"Uncle Vernon, but he's at work right now." He looked at Sakura with a question in his eyes, but he looked away without saying anything.

"Ah, it's just mamma and me right now, we used to live in the U.S. with dad, but then mamma got offered a really good job here and… and dad didn't want to move. So he stayed there, and mamma and I came here."

"What about your grandparents?" he seemed to understand that Sakura wasn't going to get offended if he asked her questions about her family.

"Ojiichan and obachan live in Japan. That's where mamma is from. We usually visit them in the summer, but not this summer. Mamma had to work. But we talk all the time on the computer. What about your grandparents?"

Harry never got a chance to answer because Dudley came around the side of the house licking a Popsicle. "Are you talking to yourself again, Potter?" He stopped when he saw Sakura sitting next to Harry. "You're that girl from the other day! What are you doing here?"

"You know, I have a name, you don't have to keep calling me 'girl' all the time. It's Sakura. And, I'm talking to Harry, not that it's any of your business!"

"It is my business because this is my house! You can't talk to Harry; he isn't allowed to have friends over!"

"Get your mom to tell me to go away. I don't take orders from kids." She said standing up. Dudley was a lot bigger then her, and possibly stronger, too, but she was faster. If she had to she could take him, but she really didn't like sparring and had never been in a real fight, so she avoided them as much as she could.

"MOM!" Dudley yelled at the top of his lungs, running around the side of the house as fast as he could. "Harry has a friend! Mom, he's not allowed! You said…" The rest of Dudley's words were lost when the front door slammed. Sakura looked at Harry who had the same frightened look on his face as before when his aunt came to pick him up, and something clicked. The year before her grandfather had taken her to help at a shelter for abused women and children, and they all had the same look as Harry when they came in.

"I just made things worse for you, didn't I?" she asked. Harry looked at her and nodded his head once. "I'm sorry. You can come to my house anytime you want, okay?"

Harry nodded again and the woman who had picked him up the other day came into the back yard. "You," She bellowed, pointing at Harry "Inside! And you." She said turning her horse-face to Sakura "I think it's time you go home. Harry isn't allowed to have friends over, he is being punished."

"When will he not be punished? Only I'd like to see him again and play with him." Sakura said, standing up and righting her bicycle.

"GET OUT!" The woman yelled, running towards Sakura. She jumped on her bicycle and tore out of the yard and headed up the street without a backward glance.

Sakura didn't see Harry again over the next few weeks. She saw plenty of Dudley, who took to walking past her house when she was out front practicing Kendo, looking smug and superior. Even though she rode her bike past number four almost every day, Harry was never outside. July turned to August, which turned into September in turn and it was time for Sakura to start her new primary school. Sakura was no stranger to new schools. Her father had had a job that made him move around every year, so Sakura had never attended the same school two years in a row, so starting over in a new school didn't bother her. What she was scared of, what she really hoped for was that nothing weird happened this year.

Ever since she could remember, strange and unexplainable things happened around her. When she was in Pre K another kid took her milk at snack time and somehow the milk, which had been fine when Sakura was drinking it, went sour when the boy took a sip. Another time at a different school a boy pushed her off the jungle gym at recess and, instead of falling and breaking her arm or leg; she bounced back up to the top and kicked the boy in the stomach. Even though ten other kids saw exactly what had happened, they didn't believe that Sakura had been pushed at all, and that she had pushed the other boy, and she was suspended. But by far the weirdest thing that has happened to Sakura was the time the class took a field trip to a museum. It was a very interesting museum, and Sakura was having fun learning about dinosaurs and archeology until someone pushed her into a large exhibit filled with all different skeletons of dinosaurs that she had been looking at. Instead of crashing through the bones and destroying the entire thing, Sakura seemed to go through them, and came to rest in the rib cage of a Triceratops. She had been expelled for 'climbing on the exhibit' and the school had been banned from ever returning to the museum again.

So many impossible things happen around Sakura that she always felt like there was something wrong with her. Every time she shared her feelings with her mother, all she said was "There is nothing wrong with you, baby. It's just the family gift." 'The family gift' is the only thing that anyone ever said. She asked her grandfather, her grandmother, her aunts and uncles, and even her father and they all told her the same thing. "There is nothing wrong with you. It's just the family gift."

Sakura sighed and picked at her eggs while her mother bustled around, gathering things for her to take to school.

"Pens, pencils, paper, notebook, you know, you really should have gotten all this together last night like I asked." Sakura sighed again. She never really wanted to go to a new school and had been putting off getting her stuff together. "Eat, Sakura. It's your first day; you should start off with a good breakfast." Sakura took a bite of toast and jam.

"Can we go now?" Sakura asked. She made the excuse that she didn't want to be late, but the truth is that she just wanted to get it over with. She has noticed that how the first day at a new school goes sets the tone for the rest of the year. So far only bad things had happened on the first day of a new school, like turning milk sour, or kicking a kid off the jungle gym. She grabbed her backpack and headed out to her mom's car.

When they arrived at school Sakura told her mom that she could find her classroom on her own, and not to worry about it, but she went in with her anyway. Once they found her classroom Sakura sat in the seat closest to the back and looked out the window. Her mom was talking to the teacher, and Sakura was watching as other kids pulled up in front of the school. One family in particular caught her eye; the large, beefy man she hadn't seen before, but the skinny woman she recognized as Harry's aunt. Sure enough, Harry's fat cousin, Dudley, climbed out of the back seat of the car, followed by Harry, himself. He looked worse for wear. The baggy clothes seemed even baggier on him now than they had when they first met, and he seemed to walk with a slight limp.

A few minutes later Harry barreled into the classroom alone, almost knocking Sakura's mom down. He muttered an apology as she helped him up. "It's quite all right, dear, why don't you go have a seat by Sakura? She missed you."

Harry took the desk to the right of Sakura. "Hey Harry, how have you been?" she asked.

"I'm fine, thanks. How are you?" They made small talk for a little while longer as the classroom filled up with other kids. One child Sakura recognized from Dudley's gang took the desk directly behind Harry. He looked like a mouse, and she thought his name was Polkiss or something like that. He reached up and pulled Harry's hair and when Harry turned around he glared at him, almost daring him to say something. But at that moment a bell rang somewhere and the teacher stood up and started taking roll.

Sakura watched the Polkiss boy pull Harry's hair again and she thought 'this is going to be a long day.'

**Hello Readers.**

**Thank you for reading Chapter 2 of my story. Any constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. I'm writing this story for two reasons. One is because this idea has been marinating in my head for a long time now, and the second reason is because I want to become a better writer and one of the best way to do that is to write and get others to read it and give you feedback, so reviews are awesome! **

**~DragonRider22 **


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